


somebody's gone

by dayevsphil



Series: side b: masterpiece theatre (amnesia au timestamps) [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayevsphil/pseuds/dayevsphil
Summary: Dan's first therapy session after the incident. Amnesia AU timestamp.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: side b: masterpiece theatre (amnesia au timestamps) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559110
Comments: 15
Kudos: 113





	somebody's gone

**Author's Note:**

> set in part one of amnesia au, which you can read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1449553) if you're not familiar with it! 
> 
> prompted by outphan <3
> 
> read and reblog on tumblr [here!](https://dayevsphil.tumblr.com/post/189431035568/somebodys-gone)

Dan has so much to say that he doesn’t even know where to begin. He’s vibrating slightly the entire time he’s in the back of an Uber and crammed into the too-small seats in the waiting room, his mind working overtime and his body struggling to catch up. Now that he’s got Robin in front of him and the door closed behind him, though, it’s like his tongue won’t work.

“You look stressed, Dan,” Robin says in that mild, non-judgmental way that usually puts Dan at ease.

“I am stressed,” says Dan. He wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and huffs a laugh with absolutely no humour in it. “It’s, uh, been a pretty fucking crazy week. Sorry, I mean, like, not crazy. Ridiculous. A ridiculous week.”

The smile Robin gives him, so encouraging and soft, is almost enough to make Dan break the fuck down. “You don’t need to apologise. It’s good that you catch those words now and change them to something without stigma, but I’m not going to throw something at you if you forget. It’s okay to use the words that come naturally.”

Robin’s office is a safe place in a way that most things outside of Dan’s front door are not. Today, that’s not helping him calm down. He’s got his boyfriend waiting at home for him with a Buffy boxset and too much coffee. That on its own isn’t unusual, but.

“You won't believe what's happened, Robin,” Dan tells her, his voice right on the knife's edge of hysteria and threatening to topple over. “Like literally will not believe it, because it's impossible and fucked up and I'm so fucking angry at the universe, and I can't talk about it, and -”

“Breathe, Dan,” she says softly, leaning forward in her chair. 

Dan does as he’s told, taking deep breaths in a familiar pattern until he feels less like he’s about to lose his entire mind. “Okay. Okay. Breathing.”

“Proud of you,” Robin says. Her tone is light so he can brush it off as a joke if he wants to, but today Dan needs that reassurance. It feels so much like he’s on his own in this, shut in the walls of his flat that used to be nothing but comforting, and having someone looking after just Dan is so unusual that he always feels a bit selfish for needing it. “Do you need some help starting, or are you okay to tell me what happened?”

Dan is anything but okay. He nods anyway. “It’s Phil. He fainted again.”

“I remember how scary that was for you last time,” says Robin when he doesn’t continue talking. “Did you have to go to hospital again?”

“Yeah, they still don’t really know what’s wrong,” Dan says, letting the resentment into his tone that he bit down on when he was in front of the doctors. “But it’s fucking… way worse this time. He didn’t just pass out, his brain fucking, like, malfunctioned, or something, they don’t know what it is, but he doesn’t remember the past twelve years.”

There is absolute silence for a moment while Robin absorbs that. The fan in her office corner is off in deference to the chill in the air, and Dan almost wishes that white noise or the ticking of a clock could pierce this quiet so he isn’t left with his own racing thoughts.

“How are you feeling?” Robin asks, tucking a couple of thin braids behind her ear.

“I don’t know,” says Dan. “It’s, like. A lot.”

“Well, yeah.” Robin laughs a bit, just a disbelieving sort of exhale that Dan can really relate to. “I’m sure it’s terrifying for both of you. What did you mean when you said you can’t talk about this?”

“I just mean, it happened to Phil, not to me. I don’t think complaining about how hard it is for me when he’s adjusting to a brain injury is very nice.”

Robin gives him a look that Dan is all too familiar with, the one that says she thinks he’s being an idiot but is too good at her job to say so out loud, and shakes her head. “Just because something happened around you instead of directly _to_ you doesn’t make your feelings about it any less valid, Daniel. If you don’t feel like you can talk about it at home, why don’t we start to unravel those feelings here? Maybe we can work up to you telling Phil how it’s affecting you.”

As always, Dan’s eyes drift to the corner of the office. The leaves of Robin’s fern are healthy and beautiful and so much easier to look at when he’s cutting his soul open and inspecting it with an audience. “Maybe. I definitely need to get it out somewhere, right?”

“That’s right. It’s okay to be scared and upset, Dan.”

Dan has to close his eyes completely for a moment, letting the simple words wash over him and rinse out some of the lingering guilt over how selfish it is for him to be here right now when Phil needs him. 

He’s no use to Phil if he bottles everything up, though. That’s part of why he’d started going to therapy in the first place.

“Okay,” he tells the fern, “I want to tell you how fucking angry I am at the world right now.”

**Author's Note:**

> cat & chicken save the world (my fics)! i think this is the first time i've used the angst tag, but it definitely seemed accurate here.


End file.
